1 Dead, Cop Hurt As Shots Ring Out In Union Station

A routine drug investigation inside Chicago's Union Station erupted into a midday gun battle Tuesday, sending passengers scurrying for cover and leaving one suspect dead, his companion critically wounded and a Chicago police officer shot in the leg.The 1:15 p.m. shootout at the station's south concourse came after three plainclothes officers, suspicious that two men might be drug couriers traveling by train, asked to see one's identification, authorities said.

Unzipping his coat, one man exposed a weapon underneath, prompting one officer to shout out, "He's got a gun!" according to Mark Hannan, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Chicago.

The suspect's companion then pulled a gun, Hannan said. A DEA agent grabbed him, but he broke away, ran a short distance, turned and pointed the weapon at the agent, Hannan said. The agent fired, wounding that suspect.

In the meantime, the other suspect had his gun out and put it to the head of a female Chicago police officer, Hannan said. The three officers--including an Amtrak cop--struggled over the gun before the DEA agent shot and fatally wounded the second suspect, Hannon said.

During the struggle, the unidentified Chicago police officer was struck in the calf with a bullet. She was released after treatment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Chicago police said there was no evidence that either of the suspects fired their weapons.The surviving suspect apparently suffered multiple gunshot wounds, was listed in critical condition at the same hospital and underwent surgery.

The entire episode took just seconds to unfold, sending frightened passengers waiting near Track 26 sprinting for safety, ducking under seats and hiding in bathrooms.

According to Amtrak, the station wasn't crowded when the shooting broke out, but bystanders said passengers were nearby, walking to and from trains and sitting in two waiting rooms that parallel the concourse. Some had been stranded in Chicago since Monday because of delays as a result of the snowstorm. Eyewitnesses described the scene as pandemonium.

Carol LaVelle, a grandmother from Clio, Mich., was walking with her 13-year-old son, Michael, toward the gates when people came rushing out toward them.

She and her son ran to a nearby bathroom with three other people, locked themselves inside and hid there until they heard the sound of police radios and figured it was safe to emerge.

Rene Carrillo had just stepped off the same train as the suspects--originating in upstate New York--and onto the platform with other passengers when he heard screaming.

"They started running back toward the trains," said Carrillo of Avoca, N.Y. Another passenger Carillo recognized from the trip approached looking dazed, saying he had just seen bodies lying on the concourse.

"You started hearing pop, pop, pop, and all these people said, `Get back,'" said Michael LaBrecque, who had just gotten off a train from Springfield, Mass. He hid behind a pillar on the train platform, explaining he didn't want to be hit by ricocheting bullets.

Amie Trent, 23, was talking to her mother on a pay phone near the concourse when she heard shots fired and saw people running and screaming, `Run, run.'"

"Everybody was running, and some people were falling," said Angela Strong, who works in the Eastern Lobby Shop in the station and pulled down the security gates after the shooting broke out.

The three officers are part of a federal-state drug interdiction task force that has regularly patrolled Chicago's airports, the Amtrak station and the bus terminal since at least the mid-1980s.

Often acting on hunches, they stop suspicious passengers exiting or entering planes, trains or buses usually headed to or from so-called "source cities," usually located near the U.S. border and the sites of heavy drug smuggling, authorities said.

"Often times these are chance encounters," Hannan said.

The officers look for out-of-the-ordinary behavior, perhaps someone who picks up a pay phone but doesn't dial any numbers or someoneon nervously looking about the station, Hannan said.

A former member of the task force said Union Station can be more dangerous for the plainclothes officers than either O'Hare International Airport or Midway Airport where passengers must go through metal detectors.

By court order, the questioning must take place in a public area, Hannan said, and officers must make it clear to those being questioned that they are free to leave.

Hannan said one of the suspects had agreed to be interviewed by the Chicago police officer after he deboarded the train on Track 26.

Hannan didn't know if the two men had been stopped based on a tip or because of the officers' suspicions.

The train carrying the two suspects had traveled from Syracuse, stopped in Chicago for a layover and was heading to Tucson, Ariz., authorities said.

After the shootout, police didn't find any narcotics on either suspect, but one had in excess of $10,000 in cash in his possession, authorities said.

This marked the sixth shooting of a Chicago police officer in 2000, according to department officials.

Two other Chicago police officers racing to the scene of the shootout were slightly injured when their squad car collided with a cab on Canal Street near Union Station.

Authorities said the three task force members each had more than a year's experience on the team, made up of about a dozen officers and agents from the DEA, Chicago Police Department, Amtrak police and the Cook County's sheriff's department and state's attorney's office. The wounded Chicago police officer has had about 10 years on the force.